Lessons from the powers-that-be

Sunday

Jul 29, 2007 at 2:00 AM

Before there was New York Regional Interconnect, there was Marcy-South. A generation ago, Marcy-South's giant scarecrow forms marched across central New York sparking controversy while carrying the promise of energy independence along a crackling trapeze of arm-thick wires. The townspeople rallied against its advance, much as they have now against NYRI.

Brendan Scott

Before there was New York Regional Interconnect, there was Marcy-South.

A generation ago, Marcy-South's giant scarecrow forms marched across central New York sparking controversy while carrying the promise of energy independence along a crackling trapeze of arm-thick wires.

The townspeople rallied against its advance, much as they have now against NYRI.

They painted signs, carried petitions and filed lawsuits. They shamed politicians into action and penned op-eds lamenting the imperiled beauty of "this archetypal American countryside," as one descendent of frontier novelist James Fenimore Cooper wrote.

In the end, the New York State Power Authority and the lure of cheap Canadian hydro-power proved too strong. Opponents forced Marcy-South to steer clear of lakes, parks, villages, mountaintops and habitats.

They could not stop it.

Today, Marcy-South provides a buzzing, 345-kilovolt reminder that power lines like NYRI do get built. It stands as a 12-story monument to the consequences of their construction: taken land and interrupted vistas.

But the mid-1980s Marcy-South proposal and the fight against it bears some distinct differences from the current effort to mainline hundreds of surplus megawatts from upstate to the power-hungry metro area.

Those differences, which the Sunday Record delves into below, might weigh heavily on the success or failure of NYRI, or as some call the project, the "Son of Marcy-South."

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.